I only saw Sarafanov dance once (Etudes, NY City Center 2008), but he was absolutely incredible!! I would love to see him at ABT!! Isn't he supposed to be unhappy at the company he's with now (the same company Osipov and Vasilev went to, I don't know how to spell the name.) What a coup it would be for ABT to have him as a principal dancer.

Wow! If Golding is an example of what an ABT corps guy can do with proper coaching and development and opportunities, I shudder to think of what talent may be languishing in the current corps. When did Golding leave ABT?

I only saw Sarafanov dance once (Etudes, NY City Center 2008), but he was absolutely incredible!! I would love to see him at ABT!! Isn't he supposed to be unhappy at the company he's with now (the same company Osipov and Vasilev went to, I don't know how to spell the name.) What a coup it would be for ABT to have him as a principal dancer.

I'm not sure what the benefit of Sarafanov would be when they already have Simkin on the roster. They remind me quite a bit of each other, and if people have issues with Simkin's younger looks for a lot of danseur roles than Sarafanov runs into the same issue. Plus, Sarafanov is not a great partner dealing with the extremely willowy ladies of the Mariinsky so Id be a little nervous to see what he might make of the slightly less willowy ladies of ABT (this is not a slight to the bodies of women of ABT at all, I like that they look healthy) and he's not a great actor.

Cobweb--Golding left ABT for Corella Ballet when Corella was first getting the company together (maybe 07/08ish), then moved on to the DNB after. His height alone should have had Kevin begging him to stay, since he likes tall female dancers so much.

I could not copy it. It is Russian youtube. I have tried many time to post it, but the link is some media link and I cannot post it here for some reason. Sorry. I have tried and tried. It just keeps leading to my youtube account which I would prefer to remain private.

No worries..here we go. It's purposefully cagey, I believe, due to what they are dancing.

http://youtu.be/xbYlWrvMitY

Why are they playing that coda-(and in general the whole piece)- soooo s-l-o-o-o-w...? That whole Pas needs to be faster, quicker, sharper!

I think, the problem why the talented male corp and soloists are not progressing as much as expected is the absence of a good male coach. The ladies have Irina and others but the males don't have one. They should have JM Carreno as a coach,ballet master .

Speaking of which...anyone know what Carreno has done in the year since his retirement form the company? I know he wanted to try other forms of dance and experiment as an artist and whatnot...but does anyone have an actual update? He is still in NY right?

and ksk06 - THANK YOU!

also, how long was Golding with ABT before he left? He's pretty young, so it's impressive how far he's come. (granted he has talent, the looks, and solid training)

I only saw Sarafanov dance once (Etudes, NY City Center 2008), but he was absolutely incredible!! I would love to see him at ABT!! Isn't he supposed to be unhappy at the company he's with now (the same company Osipov and Vasilev went to, I don't know how to spell the name.) What a coup it would be for ABT to have him as a principal dancer.

I'm not sure what the benefit of Sarafanov would be when they already have Simkin on the roster. They remind me quite a bit of each other, and if people have issues with Simkin's younger looks for a lot of danseur roles than Sarafanov runs into the same issue. Plus, Sarafanov is not a great partner dealing with the extremely willowy ladies of the Mariinsky so Id be a little nervous to see what he might make of the slightly less willowy ladies of ABT (this is not a slight to the bodies of women of ABT at all, I like that they look healthy) and he's not a great actor.

I'd love for the promotions to come from within, and not outsourced. I have always liked ballet company's like NYCB, the Bolshoi, and Mariinsky's ballet tradition of having pretty much the majority of their dancers, from the principals down to the corp, a product of their company and the nationality of the company. Now that ABT has a feeder school, I hope they start doing this and developing their own style.

I too love the promote from within model. I believe that the ABT rep make it difficult, unless it's an obvious talent who hired to serve corps/soloist time until promoted. This would be a Bujones or a Simkin. What I mean is that the repertory of primarily big ballets doesn't allow for a lot of stage time development. Doing 8 or 10 peasant pas a year doesn't prepare a dancer for Albricht. The company can't really take a chance on an up and coming dancer because of ticket sales and the fact that it takes away an opportunity for an established principal to do the role. Contrast this with NYCB which can put dancers out there in challenging corps and soloist roles more than once a performance.

The exception in ABT (IMO) are when tall men are needed. Patrick Bissell (again IMO) was promoted before he was ready because he was tall. Even Hallberg, obviously an excellent dancer, might not have moved up quite so fast if he wasn't tall.

I just don't know how talent can be developed and nurtured unless people can be given lots, and lots of opportunities.

I just don't know how talent can be developed and nurtured unless people can be given lots, and lots of opportunities.

It would go a long way if they went back to having longer City Center seasons, imo. ABT has many, many shorter narrative works that make for good testing ground for future full-length tryouts. They just need to actually program decent work, rather than the weird rep they've put on for the last two years and their City Center seasons would be salvaged while giving the audiences a venue to "shop" new talent/partnerships.